


A Companion

by ChokolatteJedi



Category: Firefly
Genre: Backstory, Companions, Female-Centric, Gen, Non-Explicit Sex, Sexual Content, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2013-07-01
Packaged: 2017-12-16 20:56:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/866521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/pseuds/ChokolatteJedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inara was eight the first time she saw a Companion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Companion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kastaka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kastaka/gifts).



> A huge thank you to my wonderful Beta!

Inara was eight the first time she saw a Companion. Her mother was catering a glamorous party, and one of her serving girls was too sick to work. Inara was too little to serve, but she could help hold things for the girls, to make their jobs faster while they covered for the gap. When she was allowed a break, Inara sat in a corner by the dance floor and watched the beautiful ladies swirl by. Annelle was one of her mother's oldest girls, and she sat beside Inara and named every lady. At the time, Inara couldn't have said if the names were even real, but she never questioned how Annelle would know them.

Then one lady in a deep blue dress with sparkling diamonds around the bodice walked by, and the others all nodded to her. But their looks were... different. Inara asked, and Annelle explained that the lady was a Companion, but that Inara's mother would probably fire her for explaining to her innocent daughter what a Companion was. Content with that for the moment, Inara just watched the dancing. As the lady in the blue dress danced past, every eye followed her; the women's eyes full of envy and respect and the men's eyes full of what Inara thought was love (she learned later the difference between love and lust). These were the same ladies and gentlemen who ignored her wonderful mother unless they wanted her work, and even then they looked on her with scorn or boredom. But they seemed to _worship_ the lady in the blue dress. And in that moment, Inara decided to become a Companion.

~~*~~

At the age of twelve, working class girls on Sihnon were supposed to choose their path. They could enter their parent's profession or attempt to apprentice to a different master. A week after her twelfth birthday, Inara knocked on the door of the Guild House on Sihnon. Her mother had forbidden her to come here, but Inara was determined. In her mind's eye she still saw the lady in the blue dress from all those years ago, and she wouldn't be satisfied with anything less.

The House had a large, high wall around the outside, and, like the many buildings inside, it was made of clean white stucco with creamy orange tiles on the roofs. Inside the walls, dozens of smaller buildings were arranged in neat sections. The front half was one large section full of smaller, private buildings, while the back half was divided into four quadrants. Each block had a wonderful garden at the center, with deep porches and covered walkways between the buildings. Greenery was everywhere, creating a lush contrast to the clean white and orange of the buildings.

Inara was assigned to the Applicant quarter, which was really a squared eight, composed of two garden compounds against the farthest back wall. One compound was for living, and it contained the bedrooms for the twelve and thirteen year old students. A covered walkway connected it to the teaching area, where their instructors also lived. Ling Su was their primary instructor, and she showed Inara and Nandi, another new girl, around the teaching rooms. There was a large room with a wooden floor, where they would learn to dance, a classroom with desks, where they would study etiquette, and a small kitchen where they would be taught to cook. When Inara protested that she knew how to cook - her mother was a caterer, after all - she was told that if she proved sufficient she may substitute extra gardening lessons instead.

In her first year, Inara's days fell into a structured routine. She would arise at dawn and pray, and then dress in her work dress. After breakfast was served, she would report to the Applicant garden for lessons in horticulture and nature or to the kitchen for cooking and serving lessons. After the mid-morning bell rang out through the House, she would gather with the other girls in the teaching garden and they would meditate. After lunch she changed into her indoor dress. The first half of the afternoon was filled with etiquette lessons, followed by history and philosophy class. After dinner came dancing, then a bath and bed. Every two weeks, if she had been good, she would receive an afternoon to herself.

There were two Applicants who had arrived the same month as Inara - Nandi and Jade - and six who had been there a little longer. As the months passed, the oldest two Applicants graduated to the next level, and three new girls joined their quadrant, but their comings and goings were inconsequential to Inara. She was learning so much more than she had ever imagined, and she did her best to absorb all of it into herself, as stones slipped into a pond until it was full. She learned the proper way to address a person of every rank, and the history of Earth that was, and the most beautiful way to arrange a bouquet, and a dozen menus to prepare to impress and entice a client.

She also learned from her instructors exactly what a Companion did. It was something she had vaguely understood before, but now it was made exceedingly clear to her exactly what did and did not fall into her line of work. After learning those details, Inara had used her free afternoon to sit in the Applicant garden and think. When she pictured herself as a Companion, she had always imagined herself at a glamorous party, in the most gorgeous dress, dancing with any man she wanted. But could she really do all the rest? Could she believably tell a man what he needed to hear and win his heart? Could she satisfy him enough to earn what she needed to survive? Could she live without ties and withstand the scorn of other women? By dinner, Inara was certain of her place. She was going to complete Companion training, and when she graduated she was going to become the most sought after Companion in the galaxy.

On her thirteenth birthday, Inara's lessons shifted. She began to learn yoga and massage two mornings a week, and small talk, art, and music were added to her afternoon lessons. She began to notice that she was progressing slightly faster than some of the other girls. Jade, who had started within days of her, joined the yoga class two months later. It wasn't that she was prideful, or particularly interested in the other girls' progress, but she had always been observant. And observing it made her realize that perhaps her dream wasn't as out of reach as it had seemed the first the lady in blue had danced past.

When she turned fourteen, Inara was graduated to the Intermediates Quarter. It looked almost identical to the Applicants Quarter, except that her room was a little larger, and she was now allowed to add her own decorations from stores. Her routine changed again, as she added tai chi, medicine, and fashion to her morning lessons, and indoor games, writing, and sums to her afternoon classes. She thrived in these lessons too, and was again quickly at the head of her group.

For her fifteenth year, Inara was sent away from the House, along with the other Intermediates. They were taken to the neighboring planet, Liann Jiun, and it was Inara's first time off world. Watching the stars floating in the black through the cockpit window, Inara found her second love. On Liann Jiun, the girls lived on a cultivated ranch very similar to the House, except the walls were much larger, and many lush green lawns filled the space. Here their usual lessons were replaced by horseback riding, basic animal husbandry, weapons training, driving, outdoor sports and games, and the flying of several different types of spaceships and shuttles. The girls ate meals with the grooms and hands, serving them and practicing their small talk. Each fortnight there was a party, with dancing, and Inara quickly found herself to be a popular dance partner.

At sixteen she returned to Sihnon, but she was allowed to leave the House for short, well-supervised trips into town. Each Intermediate was accompanied by one Companion, and quickly Tiose became a mentor to Inara. Together they would dress in their finest outfits and drive into the pleasure district, where they went shopping, or ate at a tea house, or attended a garden party. It was a test of her skills, and Inara felt any of her lingering doubts disappearing as the afternoons continued. She very rarely stumbled in conversation, and her clothes were often complimented by the women she spoke to. When she attended a dance hall, she had new partner ready for each song, and a dozen lads brought her punch when she teasingly complained of thirst.

Tiose showed her makeup tricks, and a fancy way to fold a handkerchief, and the right area to place a single candle to fill a room with scent. In return, Inara taught her how to use mirrors to light a space and subtle signals to use with waiters and servers that her mother had taught her. As the year passed, they became as close as sisters, and Tiose threw Inara a small party the night before her seventeenth birthday.

The next morning, Inara was brought to the Mistress of the House. The Mistress gave her the choice; leave the house now, as a well-trained, well-bred young lady and marry well, or complete the last, most intimate level of Companion training. And without hesitation, Inara became a Novice Companion.

Her days were once again spent in lessons, but of a different sort. Inara studied all the erotic texts in the Companion library. She studied human psychology, anatomy, physiognomy, and physiology, so that she would know every inch of the body and brain. She learned dozens of positions from which to please a client, or gain pleasure herself. She learned of chemicals that would enhance or minimize sensation, prolong or shorten pleasure, entice or subdue a subject: hundreds of ways to chemically manipulate the human body. She learned how to touch without touching, and a lexicon of sounds that affected the subconscious in different ways. 

After a year of theoretical work and practice, peppered by the rare afternoon out with Tiose, Inara sat her examinations. A full medical examination by the House physician, and a practical demonstration of everything she had learned in the last six years. On the last day of her exams, on her eighteenth birthday, she entertained her first client.

In some ways, it was everything she expected, had been trained to expect over the last year. And in some ways, it was nothing like the descriptions. As the passion raged through her, and the client fell back against the headboard, Inara felt, for the first time in her life, complete. The next morning, she moved to her own apartment in the front of the House, and her name was added to the Registry.

She was now a Companion.


End file.
